datacloud

Information Architecture Deliverables Defined

From the Davezilla on the SIGIA-L list:

IA deliverables defined. By me.

Stakeholder interviews and requirement analysis:
Finding out who will fire me when the project goes sour

Content Inventory, also known as content survey or audit:
Determines how much perfectly usable content the client has so I know how much to ignore, throw away and recreate from scratch

Heuristic analysis:
A sacred industry term that means your navigation sucks and the type is hard to read

Competitive analysis:
Determines why your competition sucks as much as you do

Cognitive mental models:
Determines how out of touch with reality your users are

Personas and audience definition:
Developing an artificial user to ignore rather than a real one

Card Sorts:
Legalized form of IA gambling

Usability sessions:
Proof that for $100 an hour, under-qualified people will agree to pretty much anything you put in front of them

Process flows and flow charts:
Diagrams that prove on paper what no one can create in reality

Site Maps:
Diagrams of a website that show precisely *where* on a site a user is lost

Wireframes:
Unstyled, structural views of websites that are frequently mistaken for final comps

Prototypes:
Working models of features that will later prove to be impossible to build

Design Reviews:
Formalized reviews of IA research that will subsequently be forgotten by everyone

Final Report:
A thick compendium of knowledge that proves scientifically why Information Architects are justified in adding another zero to the budget.

[via SIGIA-L]

Posted by johndanseven at February 9, 2006 11:57 PM